The One in White
by JoJo4
Summary: Good intentions sometimes lead to the worst disasters, but Kahlan never dreamed that this was how she would betray Richard. Episode 22 Spoilers
1. Part One: Nicholas

A/N:

Timeline: During "Reckoning" (SPOILERS!) I was trying to get through the endless waiting for the new episodes, and this idea popped into my head based on the pictures released on the website.

Spoilers: Sacrifice, Reckoning  
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or situations or anything with respect to _Legend of the Seeker_. I am not financially profiting from this story.

**The One in White**

**Part One: Nicholas**

My father was a great man. Although he was also what lesser mortals would call "cruel," to me he showed only kindness. But he warned me against such wasteful feelings as remorse and pity, for these are the marks of the weak and indecisive.

I killed my first man when I was eight, on my father's instructions. The sacrificial lamb was a shepherd who had slept with his brother's wife, a crime that to my pre-pubescent sense of ethics seemed far less severe than the seizure of a friend's rock collection. Yet they tied his hands behind his back and shoved him hard on his knees into the gravel walk before me, and my father held his head so the victim's wide gray eyes stared into mine. I botched it. The blade caught in his ribs, and I couldn't get it out with my feeble strength. He sat there moaning and groaning as I twisted the knife round and round, trying to wrench it free. At last he slumped over, his chin upon my shoulder, and he was silent. My father said he was proud of me for not flinching.

When I was eleven, I gave my father a present of twelve heads hewn from the bodies of the children plucked from the street, my boyhood persecutors. My father called it excessive, but he was not displeased.

. . . If my mother had known any of this, perhaps she would not have died.

In my scant and dying memories, my mother's gaze is distant, the spirit absent from her body. Her cheek is pale, such that the granite effigy now lying above her remains in the cavernous sepulcher beneath my father's house exhibits more life. Yet she is beautiful . . . a beautiful remnant of the only time when I desired another's love, and a constant reproach for the only act that ever caused me anguish.

I will never forget the scent of her perfume. Fresh cut roses and dew upon the battered grass after a summer torrent mingle and escape the vault of my mind long after I have forgotten the sound of her laughter, the wayward curve of her smile, the touch of her hand. Of the few words I remember from her, each seemed to hold some quaver of expectant hope. She lectured endlessly on Wizards and Seekers and the forgotten "heroes" of the olden days, reviled by my father and his cohorts. I loved to hear her stories, told in the soft and loving voice she reserved only for me.

My friend Ethan and I would reenact the great battles of the past that I had learned about from my mother's tales. He would be a wizard, laying waste all villages who gave succor to our mortal enemies. I would be the Seeker, wielding the great Sword of Truth, and before us our foes fell like stalks of wheat before the thresher. Our battle cry was, "Truth!" and the other boys of the palace fled before our wrath as we beat them down with toy swords constructed of sticks. Sometimes, I even imagined that I was fighting my father for his cruelty towards the mother I loved.

One day we were playing in the hall and my father came upon us.

"_Are you playing general?" he asked. _

I knew better than to tell the truth, but Ethan didn't._ "We're playing Wizard and Seeker, and we're fighting the D'Haran forces!" _

When Ethan's mother brought him to play again, he was beaten black and blue, and he wouldn't play my games any more. When I ordered him to join me, he refused. A commoner must never refuse an order given by his prince, so I taught him a lesson. What difference did it make?

What I did to earn my mother's hatred, I cannot understand. Do you know what it is to wake up to your mother standing over you with a dagger? She told me she loved me, yet that last night in the throne room, I saw her look upon me as if she thought of me not as half of her own self, but a parasite, who had slithered out comprised solely of parts robbed from her: her eyes, heart, flesh, hair, soul. Then she turned her head away and did not look at me again, not even when I took her hand in mine and led her to the scaffold. Her hand was cold as stone, as if she were already entombed. She shook me off when we came to the place. I watched her fold the tall collar of her dress down, exposing the lily white nape of her neck. She knelt before the executioner without a word, although I thought perhaps she would explain herself to me. She didn't. She laid her head upon the scarred wooden block, and the axe came down.

* * * *


	2. Part Two: The One in White

A/N:

Timeline: During "Reckoning" (SPOILERS!)

Spoilers: Sacrifice, Reckoning  
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or situations or anything with respect to _Legend of the Seeker_. I am not financially profiting from this story.

**The One in White**

**Part Two: The One in White**

"_It is written that the Seeker will be betrayed by the one closest to him. _

_You will be betrayed by the one in white . . ."_

Your hair is tickling my nose.

Oh, my fair-haired, precocious boy, I can smell the hay and the horses from the stables where you played. Didn't I tell you not to go there? Oh well, let me kiss the cuts on your knees and mend the holes in your tunic. Let me look at your eyes, just like my mother's and my sister's and mine. Such a pretty blue, did you know? Don't cry, don't cry.

Is it laughter that bubbles deep within these lungs of mine? Can it be that I still breathe and sing and laugh after so long a time enslaved? And can it be that I still desire life, even when all I fought for in my youth has crumbled to ash? Or is it only in moments like these that I have trouble remembering the touch of Richard's lips on mine, or the sound of his voice.

I traveled with Richard and Zedd for a year only, and out of so many years what is one to the ever-expanding vacuum of time? Sometimes I am not sure if they existed or not. There are no tales of the Seeker; no one mentions his name. But he is not dead, only far far away. Sometimes, though, it matters very little to me if he can find a way to right the past. He will reunite with another Kahlan from a different time. _I_ will never see him again.

It's unavoidable, I'm afraid, to refrain from wondering what Richard would think of me if he saw me now, garbed like a concubine in the fine clothes Darken Rahl has purchased for me. I almost hope that I will not survive long enough to see him again, for I would feel ashamed standing before him so fallen in this used and tired body that has been my prison keeper's property so long that I cannot remember what it was like to desire another or why I desired anyone at all.

Nicholas is my life now. Richard, Richard, if you were here, you would understand how I could love him. He lay in my arms, shaking and vulnerable, but I couldn't kill him. May the spirits go with you. May the spirits protect you. May my sacrifice turn to good in the end.

* * * * *

The spindle was only half wound when Alice, her lady-in-waiting, came before her and laid the mangled animal at her bare and oiled feet. Kahlan slipped them into her golden slippers and set down her morning's labor. The day was already growing hot, and the thick scarlet curtains of velvet were drawn back to let in the breeze from the atrium. Outside the sounds of children playing had suspiciously ceased.

"What is this?" she asked, turning away to the window. But she knew what it was. It was the spawn of her husband's prized pointer, the very pup Nicholas had coveted for himself. Her husband had given it Alice's nephew instead, out of spite, for he considered any attachment to a living thing a weakness.

Her son, the Prince, was standing far below her balustrade upon the inlaid stone of the atrium floor. He was at the center of a small gang of boys, mostly older than him and picked from the upper echelon of D'Hara's families. But they were silent today, seeming listless. Her son, usually their leader, stood apart from them, and a strange kind of unquiet had fallen among them.

Alice was explaining, "It was run over by a cart, my lady, and I would never ask anyone else, but you have been so kind to me. You see, my nephew won't know the difference if I can get another just like it."

"Yes, yes, take it away. Of course you can have a new one. Just please, take this poor thing and bury it."

Alice gathered her pathetic bundle and curtseyed, preparing to leave the room, but Kahlan stopped her. Looking at her son, a strange idea had occurred to her. "Alice, was it really a cart?"

"Yes, my lady."

Kahlan pursed her lips together, sensing the truth, even where Alice did not. With a great sigh that heaved up from beneath her faltering heart, she tried to still the tears that were threatening.

"Why did you bring this thing here to me?" she cried. And her shoulders began to quake. At this, Alice set down the bundle and swept across the room to enfold her Queen in her arms.

"Oh my lady, my lady, it isn't what you are thinking. He is _good_."

"Is he?" she wept. "Yes yes, it's so silly of me. So silly."

"He is good. You must believe it."

* * * * *

"_Let me do it."_

Is that his voice? Are those lips that I kissed when he was just a baby in my arms curled back into that savage snarl? Is he a child, or was he ever? Why did I stop for a moment to bid that last, fatal farewell? Why didn't I dash out his brains when they first laid him in my arms?

The guards are pulling at the sleeves of my dress as the haul me out of the throne room. My daggers are in their hands, my neck is collared still, my husband will not look at me, and my son is pulling me to my death. It seems only fair, considering what I was about to do. But there is not a hint of hesitation in those dead eyes of his, not a sign of care. I cannot bear to look at him again, knowing what a snake I have brought into this world.

The axeman is fast; the steel blade is well-sharpened, and it doesn't hurt. I'm surprised by how easy it all is, just like falling asleep again after a nightmare.

Richard, are you there? I failed you. Forgive me.


End file.
